Toyota Camry Hybrid vs Toyota Prius

Comments

If you don't have car seats, then you have enough room for 3 in the back. I have two little ones and a teener, so the Prius quickly ran out of room when the youngest graduated to a full size seat, too quickly I might add. Overall the Prius is a great car for most people, I on the other hand like a solid car, I grew up driving rear wheel drive large cars, My favorite was our old 1979 Ford LTD wagon. I put 300K on it before age took it away. The Camry I am liking it more and more each time I drive it, more power to get up and go and the traction control doesn't put us in jeopardy if the road has loose gravel or sand on it. I live out in farm country and drive 43 miles each way to work, most roads are beat up 55MPH lanes with no lines on them, and trying to get onto route 20 in the morning, sometimes you need the juice to get out and up to speed quickly, the Prius has had to make us wait for a large enough opening in traffic so as not to cause an accident. Once the car is moving, it gets up to speed quick enough, but turning out onto the road with the pedal halfway to the floor causes the TC to kick in, and when that kicks in you go no where fast.

Whats funny is you mention a grandma car, my mom smashed her Grand Marquis a week or so ago and asked me to find her a grandma car. I did, a 2007 Lincoln Town Car. She loves it! Now that is a real estate sales car for sure! It would be save for the price of gassing it up! I got her a sweet deal on that one too, with 18200 on it she paid well under current retail, and got it for the price I could have gotten on a brand new Grand Marquis Palm Beach. OTD of a little over $26K. It is top of the line too! :shades:

"Perhaps my wife will change her mind as time goes on... but she felt the ability of the hatchback to swallow more items, unusually shaped items, and the fact that she can lower the back seats one at a time or together made the decision for her. "

Sorry I didn't see your post sooner. She could have gone for a Ford Escape Hybrid, which is rated at 34 MPG in the city. That is decent for an SUV, and the driver and passengers sit high up, which would be an advantage when cruising to view real estate.

My wife put 55,000 miles on our '08 Prius then we traded it in on a '10 Prius and put another 55,000 miles on that car.

As they have made a significant change to the Camry's MPG we thought we would give it a try. So we traded our '10 Prius IV in on a Hybrid Camry. To get the color my wife wanted (White) our only choices was a base model and one with every know option... guess which one we took. Trade in amount was too good to pass up so we are now driving a loaded White Hybrid Camry.

Interestingly enough the MPG reported on the cars computer is actually less than I calculate by filling up to the same amount on a level surface, then repeating the process and doing the simple math. Computer is reporting that we are averaging 42 - 43 mpg, while the math says 45.

We have only owned the car for about 10 days and already have over 1000 miles on it!

The car handles quite well and as you might expect as a much heavier vehicle it is more stable on the highway. So far we have been able to fit everything into the trunk and single fold down rear seat that we used to cram into the Prius, but the Prius is set up better for unusually shaped items with its hatchback design.

The way my wife drives I figure it will probably cost us an extra $300 a year in fuel, but so far it seems to be a reasonable trade-off.

As far as how the Prius worked as a Real Estate Vehicle for those of you that might be interested it was terrific! As you would expect the gas mileage made showing property (running people all over town) much less painful, but what I was surprised at was that no one... I mean no one no matter what their financial status felt demeaned by being chauffeured around town in the Prius. It she had clients that were very well to do they were impressed that my wife was taking a "green" approach to her business while folks at the other end of the spectrum simply thought the car was cool-looking.

We had selected the IV model with the solar roof, which turned out to be fantastic here in Las Vegas. We would have bought the new Prius V when it came out, but they did not offer a solar roof option and you could only get the "smart-key" system (on all doors) on the top model 5 of the Prius V... which also gave you those stupid (my humble opinion please forgive if you disagree) acrylic panels which cannot be opened and simply cook the interior here in Vegas.

If this thread survives we will post back later, but like the guy who jumped off the 100 story building was heard to say as he passed the 90th floor... "so far so good!"

Thanks for providing a valuable review! My wife is thinking about a new Prius (she drives a 2003 I-4 Camry now), but her drive to work is around 46 miles round-trip and all highway, hilly at that too (need power to climb), so to me a Camry hybrid seems better -> more powerful for hills, safer (being longer and heavier), close in MPG.

Trying to persuade her to Camry, although I know Prius has way more "hybrid appeal" to her. Will be great if you can give me your takes on this... thanks!

A hybrid gets the best MPG at 35-50mph type driving where the batter can be used, engine shuts off at stoplights, etc. For straight highway driving , especially with hills the gas engine will be pretty much running the entire time (except on steep downhills). What sort of MPG was she getting with the 2003 Camry I-V?

The 2003 I4 averaged around 29-30MPG (80/20 highway/city, she is on 80MPH normally ). With the new 2012 2.5 I4, I would guess around 33MPG? hybrid I read is around 40MPG. Camry being more powerful, quieter and safer so far does not out-weight the Prius factor...

She'd probably get at least in the mid 40's MPG with the Prius with that sort of driving, so let's say 45mpg for the Prius, vs upper 30s MPG with the Camry Hybrid vs lower 30s MPG with the regular Camry. At 15,000 miles of driving at $4.00/gal, that would be $1,333, $1,579 or $1,818. If space is an issue, you'll find the Camry's truck (especially the hybrid) isn't nearly as spacious as the Prius. As far as cost, the Camry will be the cheapest, followed by the Prius, then the Prius Hybrid.Bottom line is to have her test drive them all and see which she likes. The Camry Hybrid seems to run about $3,000 more than a non-hybrid Camry, so it will take about 10 years to make up the difference in gas savings. The Prius comes in-between the two Camrys, so she'll make up the price difference in the Prius over the regular Camry in a few years.

Thanks bobw3, very good analysis! If to own the car for 10+ years, looks like the two Camrys would cost about the same, then the hybrid being more powerful would be my choice! except, doesn't hybrids require you to do extra maintenance and/or needing to go in to dealers for it?

That said, from your numbers I guess Prius is the cost king among them! So Camry wins in passenger space, size (safety), power, quietness (not sure how much), but Prius wins in overall cost and the intangible hybrid appeal...

Good analysis Bobw3, but I think she would actually do a bit better than what you are calculating if she purchased a gen. 3 Prius. We have owned 3 Prius's ('05, 08, 10) that we have put a lot of miles on driving back and forth from Las Vegas to Northern Utah. This section of I-15 is has a lot of mountain driving and the speed limit is 75 - 80. Our gen 2 Prius's average in the mid- 40's, but our gen 3 normally averaged 50. There were some trips where the average mpg would drop to 47 - 48, but on those either we got some summer blend fuel, or I was pushing the speed pretty hard.

You can put more in the Prius than the TCH, but I believe you can carry more in the TCH with 4 people in the car. Our '12 TCH normally does about 38-40 mpg on the above trip. Just driving around town we normally average around 44 and if I am careful around town I can get over 50. The TCH is a bigger heavier car and more comfortable to drive on long trips, but there are times when I think fondly of the 52+ mpg we were getting on our gen 3 Prius.

I agree that the payback time on the TCH is going to be much longer than it would be on the Prius. I was looking forward to purchasing the Plug-in version of the Prius, but was disappointed that it only gets 13 miles on the battery. It is still a great car for folks in Calif that can use it to get access to the HOV lanes, but for the majority of us I think it was a "swing and a miss" by Toyota.

I owned a 2010 Prius for a total of four months and took a $6,000 hit in the pocket book to get rid of it. There are way to many blind spots on the car. I came close to totaling it four times. I was so scared after the fourth time I started hating the Prius. Traded the Prius on a 2010 Honda CR-V, which I still have. Bought a 2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid XLE last February and love the car. I'm averaging 39.5 mpg, with a mix of one, five, 15, and 30 mile trips. I just took it up from New Jersey to Massachusetts where I averaged 43.3 mpg. I drive normal, and will use all 200 hp when coming onto the on-ramp on the NJTP. I got it fully loaded with the HD Navigation Package, JBL Stereo, moon roof (which I didn't want), leather seats, just to get Blind Spot Monitoring and backup camera. The only option I wanted that wasn't available was adaptive cruise control, which is available on the top of the line Prius.

I love my TCH and will keep it until the wheels fall off or become to expensive to maintain. For those who are considering a hybrid and can wait, take a look at the 2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid. From the looks of it it is rated at 47 mpg.

I have owned the 2007 Prius II for almost 6 years. I gave it to my husband and we bought a camry hybrid LE yesterday for $24,524 after rebate and before TTL. I loved and still love the Prius but I got really tired of the wimpiness accelerating from a stop. I drove the TCH a few months ago and couldn't get it out of my head. I originally wanted an XLE but looked at the features and realized I didn't NEED to spend an extra $5,000 to get the ones over the LE model. I'm very happy so far and am excited about my new car and my husband is excited about the Prius. (Prius has 120k on it and going strong!)